


Roundabout, Sometimes

by Kaydon



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Lives, Brothers, Friendship, Gen, Reincarnation, slices of history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 14:23:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20761808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaydon/pseuds/Kaydon
Summary: There is a prophecy of a once and future king, but they forgot about his warlock. It never gets any easier. It never gets any harder. It simply is. Again. And again. And again.





	Roundabout, Sometimes

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written between seasons three and four, posted on FFN until now. Only minor grammatical updates made. Please let me know what you think :)

There is an ancient prophecy of the once and future king, but they've long since learned that it simply isn't worth it to try and convince anyone that it might be him. An eternity ago, they may have tried, but work seldom seems worth the effort when no one is willing to listen to the truth. So when the end of the Iron Age nears and one young warrior nods to another to lay down his weapon and surrender to the Celts not a single other soul takes notice.

They resist Emperor Claudius of Rome to a bloody end only to become Roman for their next life.

X

They move swiftly through the valley, leading the people of the hills. The English attack is rapid, ruthless. Henry V is not his father. He will not stand to allow the Welsh rebellion to continue. There is another charge. Owain Glyndwr takes a hit and the Last Prince of Wales dies in a forest three days later. Magic is fading from the earth and the warlock is powerless to stop it.

X

The warlock never told the prince, but after they are killed by a burning ball of flying lead for the first time he sealed Excalibur safely within the dragon's old cave, never to be found again.

X

One more life spent in a medieval castle somewhere in the bowels of Wales shouldn't seem that remarkable to either one of them, except that for the first time in a thousand years someone mentions the once and future king and sees Arthur is that king - and it is last time ever Merlin will command a dragon to carry him high above the rolling hills of their forever home.

X

When they are stuck on a ship awaiting the arrival of the Spanish and the most powerful navy the world has ever known, fully prepared to defend the land with their lives once more, they are asked a question they don't know how to answer.

The problem with living a thousand lives is that there are a thousand names running through your brain and you can never quite pick just one.

"What are your real names anyway? I mean, if we're all going to die together out here, I'd rather not only know you as prat and idiot."

The prince paused, thinking for a moment, then half-shrugged before pointing to himself and answering with the names he hears most often. "Arthur. This is Merlin."

The sailor, who Arthur strongly suspects was Gwaine in a former life, tilts back his head and laughs. "Now now your majesty, no need to lie."

X

The Arthur/Merlin life may be the one that Arthur remembers most strongly, but the memory of their very first life is still stews in an extremely bitter piece of Merlin's mind, even after thousands of years. His name had been Seth, and he watched his twin older brothers fight more and more often until one day Cain killed Abel. Killed Arthur. Merlin has never told Arthur the truth that he created magic in those early and mysterious days of the world to take vengeance. He doesn't think he ever will.

X

If it happens that when Arthur sees a familiar cheeky grin on the owner of pair of boots stopping his innocent attack on a helpless servant he throws him in the dungeons, it is only because Merlin had the audacity to be born a citizen of a different kingdom and take almost two decades to come find him.

X

The more lives they live, the more they notice that there is always conflict in England. When William the Conqueror erects the Tower of London and they receive world that King Harold has surrendered at the Battle of Hastings, Arthur instructs his men to lay down their arms quietly. He is tired of meeting bloody ends.

They become Norman and fight the War of the Roses and engage themselves in a never-ending struggle against the Scottish, then the Welsh and then the Irish, and sometimes all three at once. They fight a cruel and dirty civil war and Arthur goes into hiding and Merlin bites his tongue as he watches Lord Protector of the Commonwealth Oliver Cromwell parade around like he's the king. All seems right once again when Edward Hyde (Merlin) sits at the right hand of Charles II (Arthur) and sees the monarchy restored.

X

It never gets any easier to watch each other die. Often it is Arthur, going out in a blaze of glory for the sake of the people while Merlin feels his heart break just one more time, until he thinks that the biggest piece left is only as large as the smallest grain of sand.

Just as often it is Merlin's fragile health causing him to slip out of this life and into the next under the guise of darkness, Arthur standing vigil at his side.

Twice Arthur dies at the hands of their brother. The second time, Cain is a young boy and calls himself Mordred. Even when the boy is at his mercy, Merlin is forgiving by nature and lets him go. He is the only person to kill Arthur twice. He is the only person Merlin has no regrets about killing (more than twice).

X

There is an odd life where they are brothers once again. Arthur is again the Prince of Wales, though he detests the title in this life because the legend of Owain Glyndwr still echoes around the fringes of society. Merlin commands a ship in the First World War and Arthur wonders if he can remember the last time he was this proud of his little brother.

And then Arthur finds Gwen. Even though she does not remember their one shared past and she is already married to Lancelot, Arthur abdicates the throne to be with her, and Merlin is left floundering for his first ever existence as a King, and he learns to hold his tongue as he practically begs their former colonies for help to defeat yet another incarnation of sleazy dictator.

Arthur attempts to find Merlin once after he abdicates the throne. Although Merlin's speaking better these days he simply stares out the window over the rolling courtyard of Windsor Castle. "But Merlin, it's her. It's Gwen."

Merlin smokes himself to an early death. It is the only time he dies first that Arthur is not by his side.

X

Their resolve not to talk to each other lasts a life and a half, until someone makes a cheesy program about their most famous of lives and they sit on the couch to watch every episode.

X

When they fight a war against their own people in 1776, Arthur is driven mad. He has always cared for his people, but in this new modern age the people are more independent, more demanding and despite a half-hearted war attempt and Merlin's best efforts (for which he will be branded history's most famous of traitors) the colonies break free and the stress proves to be too much. It is the beginning of the end of the pair who held the world together.

X

Merlin thinks they've seen a thousand apocalypses. They lived through the "inevitable" nuclear war between America and the short-lived Soviet Union, licking their wounds on their own island. They lived through Y2K, global climate change and a reversal of magnetic polarity, though it had been a close call. They lived through 2012. Merlin thinks this is the twilight of their existence together. It has been ten millennia he has lived, and he's walked all but a hundred years with Arthur by his side.

The New World Order had been only six shuttles away from evacuating everyone when the deadline hit. After three stressful days of lottery drawings and mass evacuations, Arthur, Merlin and half a million others had been left behind, watching a fleet of millions of shuttles fly away from their home and off to a new galaxy. There was a flash from the sun, and then the world went dark. They had only hours left to live. There would be no returning.

X

When Merlin created the first magic, he used his own life, connected to the land. From dust he came, to dust he shall return. As the world cooled and eternal winter set in, he felt the pull once again. When he returned Excalibur to the hands of her king, Merlin and Arthur saved the new world. All who wanted were welcome to seek refuge. Albion became a beacon of light and warmth in a dark and cold solar system under the rule of the Once and Future King and his brother, the First Warlock.


End file.
